Darkness and Daylight eBook

She suffered him to caress her as much as he liked,
and offered no remonstrance when lifting her in his
strong arms, he bade Nina lead him back to Collingwood.
Like a weary child Edith rested her head upon his
shoulder, looking behind once, and regarding Arthur
with a look he never forgot, even when the darkness
in which he now was groping had passed away, and the
full daylight was shining o’er him. Leading
Richard to a safe distance, Nina bade him wait a moment
while she went back for something she had forgotten—­then
hastening to Arthur’s side she wound her arms
around his neck, smoothed his hair, kissed his lips,
and said to him so low that Richard could not hear,

“Nina won’t desert you. She’ll
come to you again, when she gets Miggie home.
You did do it, didn’t you? but Nina’ll
never tell.”

Kissing him once more, she bounded away, and with
feelings of anguish which more than compensated for
his error, Arthur looked after them as they moved
slowly across the field, Richard sometimes tottering
beneath his load, which, nevertheless, he would not
release, and Nina, holding to his arm, telling him
where to go, and occasionally glancing backward toward
the spot where Arthur sat, until the night shadows
were falling, and he shivered with the heavy dew.
Nina did not return, and thinking that she would not,
he started for home, never knowing how he reached
there, or when; only this he knew, no one suspected
him of being in the Deering Woods when Edith Hastings
was attacked with that strange fainting fit.
Thanks for this to little Nina, who, returning as
she had promised, found the forgotten hat still
dripping with water, and hiding it beneath her shawl,
carried it safely to Grassy Spring, where it would
betray no one.

CHAPTER XXII.

Thedarknessdeepens.

Death brooded over Collingwood, and his black wing
beat clamorously against the windows of the room to
which, on that fearful night, Richard had borne his
fainting burden, and where for days and weeks she
lay so low that with every coming morning the anxious
villagers listened for the first stroke of the bell
which should tell that Edith was dead. Various
were the rumors concerning the cause of her illness,
all agreeing upon one point, to wit, that she had
fainted suddenly in the woods with Nina, and in falling,
had received a deep gash upon her forehead. This
it was which made her crazy, the people said, and
the physician humored the belief, although with his
experience he knew there was some secret sorrow preying
upon that young mind, the nature of which he could
not easily guess. It never occurred to him that
it was in any way associated with Arthur St. Claire,
whose heart-broken expression told how much he suffered,
and how dear to him was the delirious girl, who never
breathed his name, or gave token that she knew of
his existence. Every morning, regularly he rung